Got hacked? What to do if your email account has been compromised.

Suddenly you are noticing strange things happening with your email. You’re receiving email messages about login attempts, password resets and two-factor authentication codes, and your friends and family are wondering why you’re sending them weird emails. You can’t even log in to your own email account and you’ve been bumped out of your social media accounts. What is going on? Your email might have been hacked.

Don’t panic… but act quickly. You can minimize a lot of damage if you act fast and methodically.

Because your email is a gateway to all your online accounts, like banking, shopping, social media and streaming, it can potentially be a goldmine for a cyber criminal if they gain access. Here’s what you can do.

The signs that your email has been hacked

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Why am I getting so many spam emails?

You may have noticed that you’re getting a lot more spam email lately, which is frustrating and annoying. You diligently go through these emails and add them to your Spam filter, you block the sender, unsubscribe from mailing lists and so on. The spam emails keep coming…

Why it’s happening

  1. When we sign up for web sites we effectively give them permission to use our email. These companies may sell your email address to other companies who will in turn send you spam.
  2. Whenever there is a data breach on a website where you have subscribed to something, email addresses can be repeatedly sold to other spammers. You can check if your email has been been in a breach here: https://haveibeenpwned.com
  3. Spammers use mechanisms that allow their emails to go through the spam filter. They will use valid email addresses such as a @gmail account, create look-alike domains that will look like a legitimate company, or even spoof your own email address because many people whitelist their own address.
  4. Because of AI, spammers and phishers can very quickly create mass campaigns. Previously, spam was often easily spotted because of bad grammar and lack of personalization (goodbye Nigerian prince). Now, spammers use artificial intelligence to make spam and phishing more convincing, and they use social media, online behavior and public information to generate personalized campaigns. The result is that we are bombarded with spam.

What you can do

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